Four Generations Of Women
by autumnrose2010
Summary: These are the stories of Chava, her daughter Gittel/Olga, her granddaughter Svetlana, and her great granddaughter Nikita.
1. Chava: Farewell To Tradition

**1905**

Chava stood beside Fyedka as the priest pronounced them man and wife, knowing that this was it; the final break with her family and homeland had been made, a bond had been severed that could never be healed. There was to be no looking back; the only direction to move was forward. Together with Fyedka she would build a new life, would find a new niche to fill in this world that was now hers.

Fyedka raised her veil and kissed her, his lips warm and soft and loving. Together they walked hand in hand out of the church and into the life that they would share from now on.

It was later that same day, in the humble cottage they now called home, that it hit Chava that she would never see her mother or sisters again, hit her with such force that it was almost like a physical blow. The final and absolute rejection by her father had cut her to the bone; the additional loss of the rest of her family was almost more than she could bear.

Fyedka heard his wife sobbing from another room; he went to her and gathered her tenderly into his arms and tried his best to comfort her. He was well aware of the sacrifice she had made to be with him; he had made sacrifices too, but that fact in no way diminished her sorrow.

That night she lay awake in anticipation, waiting for him. He came to her with both passion and tenderness; in the beginning it was very painful, which she wasn't prepared for. She knew that it wasn't Fyedka's fault; he was trying to be as gentle as he could. Afterwards he fell asleep almost instantly, but she lay awake in his arms for a long time afterwards, feeling both elated and terrified, until she slowly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

**1906**

Chava was working in the field when she felt the first pain, and it almost doubled her over. Fyedka saw her cringe and rushed to her side.

"Is it time?" he asked.

"Yes."

Fyedka helped her back inside and then hurried to summon the midwife. Chava lay in the same bed in which her child had been conceived and wondered how long the wait would be. She had always heard that first deliveries took the longest.

She had several more contractions before the midwife arrived and examined her.

"She's got a ways to go," the midwife told Fyedka, before instructing him to boil water and round up supplies.

By the middle of the night, the contractions were strong enough to make Chava cry out in pain. "It won't be long now," the midwife told Fyedka.

Soon the pains even more unbearable, and in addition they were accompanied by an almost uncontrollable urge to bear down. The midwife checked her again and said that she was ready.

Chava grabbed the sides of the bed and pushed with all her might. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fyedka standing white-faced, holding onto a piece of furniture for support, but she barely noticed him.

She caught her breath and waited for the next contraction, then repeated the process over and over again.

At last she felt the baby's head slide out.

"Give me one more good push," the midwife instructed. With the next contraction came first one shoulder, then the other, and then the entire baby slid out. Fyedka stood watching in wonder as the midwife lay the newborn on Chava's breast.

Chava looked at the tiny head covered with damp silky hair, hardly able to believe that this tiny new life had come about as the result of her and Fyedka's act of love.

The midwife skillfully turned the baby over and cut the umbilical cord, and then began to clean the blood off the newborn.

"It's a girl," she announced.

The newborn made tiny noises that sounded like the mewing of a kitten. Chava watched the little face grimace and the tiny arms flail. The midwife wrapped the baby tightly in a blanket, and she stopped crying and opened her blue eyes to look into Chava's. The midwife delivered the afterbirth and massaged Chava's belly firmly to control the bleeding.

Fyedka, to overcome to say a word, just sat on the edge of the bed watching his newborn daughter.

"I want to name her 'Gittel'. That means 'good' in my language."

Fyedka nodded his assent. Both of them silently watched baby Gittel until she was sleeping soundly, followed soon afterwards by Chava.


	2. Gittel: Watching Trains

**1942**

Gittel could stand and watch the trains for hours. Long, interminable, never-ending lines of boxcar after identical boxcar, each one filled to the brim with people, dirty, hungry, tired, frightened people, being taken like livestock to the slaughter. She knew that they were never coming back because the trains only went in one direction, and that was toward the forced labor camps. She also knew that the trains' occupants were her mother's own people, the friends and neighbors of her mother's family or families just like them. Doubtlessly some were even Gittel's own distant cousins. Another thing Gittel knew was that the only reason her mother, and therefore also herself and her siblings, weren't also either on their way to, or already at, one of the camps, was that her father, Fyedka, was good friends with an employee of the country's intelligence agency, and that her father's friend had been able to get false identity papers for the family members who needed them.

Her mother was no longer called Chava. She now had documented proof that her parents had been members of the Russian Orthodox Church and that she herself had been christened Ivana Romanov when only a few days old. That document meant the difference between life and death for her, and therefore for her children as well. How ironic that Gittel herself, whose name meant 'good' in her mother's native tongue, could no longer be called Gittel but was now known as Olga. Gittel's children, Ivan, Nadya, Peter, and Svetlana, all had Russian given names and a Russian surname, so it was hoped that they were safe.

Gittel, as did everyone else she knew, hoped that the war would soon be over, that Adolf Hitler's evil regime would be forced back to where they had come from, that the country would be free once again, that the endless lines of trains would no longer snake across the once peaceful countryside. No one knew what horrors they would eventually wreak before they were finally stopped.

As Gittel watched the boxcars as they slowly rumbled past, she wondered how many of the occupants were children, how many were babies who would never know what it was like to run across a green field or go swimming in the lake in the summer.

_There but for the grace of God..._

Gittel felt a tear roll down her cheek as she said a silent prayer to the God of her mother's people, who was, ironically enough, also the God of the Russian Orthodox Church. At least, that was what Gittel had always been told._  
_


	3. Svetlana: Remembering

**1975**

It was a cold, rainy day in January. Thirteen-year-old Dimitri, who was already taller than his mother, looked solemn in a black suit. Ten-year-old Nikita and seven-year-old Tatiana held hands, their faces pale and their eyes downcast. Svetlana held tightly to her husband Sergei's arm, which was held securely to his side. They were going to say good-bye to Svetlana's grandmother, Chava.

"_Babyshka!" _Nikita exclaimed as they entered the house. Olga, formerly known as Gitell, turned to embrace her grandchildren.

"I can't believe how tall you are now!" she said to Dimitri, who smiled shyly.

"I'm getting taller too, _Babyshka," _said Tatiana.

"And so you are, _vnuchka." _Olga kissed the top of Tatiana's head as the children began to mill around and greet other relatives.

"Is it true that our great grandmother's entire family turned their backs on her when she married our great grandfather?" Nikita asked her grandmother.

"It's true," Olga said sadly. "Her family was Jewish. During the reign of Tsar Nicholas, the Jews lived in neighborhoods of their own called _shtetls. _They had their own culture and their own traditions. Your great grandmother broke with tradition by marrying a non-Jew, so her family saw her as a traitor."

"She must have really loved him," Nikita said. "How did they meet?"

"He defended her against some other boys who were teasing her. After that they discovered that they had a lot in common and quickly fell for one another."

"That sounds _so _romantic," Nikita sighed. "Did our great grandmother ever see any of her family members again after that?"

"Sadly, no. Her parents and sisters emigrated to the United States, and of course the revolution happened a short time after that."

"How old were you when the revolution happened?"

"I was eleven years old when it started. It was still going on when I turned twelve."

"Wasn't that awfully scary?"

"I was too young to understand very well what was going on, but I remember crying when we heard that Tsar Nicholas and his family had been assassinated. The tsarevich, Alexei, was only two years older than me."

Svetlana listened attentively to the conversation between her mother and her older daughter. She had heard all her mother's stories before, of course, but she seemed to learn something new each time she heard them again.

"So we have relatives who are American citizens then?" asked Nikita.

"If the descendants of Shrintze and Bielke still live there, then yes, we do."

"And yet the Americans are our enemies."

"They are our competitors. They believe that their way of doing things is better than ours."

"I hope that someday we can all be friends," said Nikita.

"You're a darling girl, _vnuchka." _Olga kissed Nikita's cheek.

Soon it was time to leave for the cemetery. Sergei helped Svetlana's brothers Ivan and Peter to carry the coffin as the brass band played, and everyone else followed behind them in a procession. Lastly, all the friends and family members filed past for one final look at great grandmother Chava, and then the coffin was nailed shut. The national anthem was played as it was lowered into the ground.

With their arms around one another, Sergei and Svetlana silently turned and walked away from the grave with their children.


	4. Nikita: Winds Of Change

**1991**

She would never forget the day the wall was torn down. The wall had been the focal point of her life for so long that she couldn't imagine it not being there. Yet all of a sudden it was gone. Citizens of both sides of Berlin could freely come and go as they pleased, and Nikita and her former co-workers were sent back to their homeland.

The train swept through miles and miles of northeastern Europe, past many acres of farmland formerly owned by the government and now to be taken over by private owners. At last the train came to a stop in Nikita's home town. She realized that she had forgotten how cold it was and wished that she had worn a warmer jacket as she shivered inside the station. She was so happy to see her parents and siblings again, and her elderly grandmother who had been born before the Revolution of 1917 and so had lived to see her country's leadership come full circle. Nikita hadn't realized how much she had missed them all. Everyone was very glad to see Nikita as well, and they couldn't believe how much older and, in some ways, sadder she looked than she had the last time they had seen her.

On the journey to her family's dwelling she thought about him and wondered whether she would ever see him again. He had been a frequent visitor to the democratized half of Berlin, and she remembered seeing him standing beside his convertible silently watching. From the make and model of his car and the style of his clothing she guessed that he must be a tourist. Nikita wondered what it was that drew him to the city of Berlin repeatedly.

Back home life had been turned upside down. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was no more. The KGB was no more. In their place was a new government in embryonic form, as shaky and unsteady on it's feet as a newborn lamb.

The economy was in terrible shape. Items that one had formerly had to stand in long lines to purchase were often not available at all now. There were no jobs. Many young women in Nikita's position turned to prostitution to prevent their families from starving, but Nikita knew that there had to be a better way than that. Prophylactics were hard to find and quite expensive, and when available at all were usually of poor quality. To bring an innocent child into the world that was now hers would have been absolutely unthinkable, and even worse would have been the threat of HIV infection, which would mean either a slow and agonizing death or lifelong dependence on expensive drugs with unpleasant side effects.

To help pass the long hours and keep her mind off her often-empty stomach, Nikita began writing. She had been told as a young girl that it would one day be her job to stand guard at the Berlin Wall, to prevent the loss of East Germany's labor force to the democratic world. Everyone was told at a young age what their future occupations would be. It was a way of making sure that there were just the right number of employees in each line of work, or so she had been told. So from early in life Nikita knew that her future position would be beside the Berlin Wall.

She never thought to ask herself whether or not she really wanted to be a guard. She simply knew that that would be her job, and that was that. It was the way life was and no one questioned it, nor even thought of questioning it.

Now as memories came flooding back to her, she filled page after page with stories of her life as a guard beside the wall. When she had written everything that she thought was worthy of being remembered she mailed her manuscript to a publishing house in the newly reunified Germany and didn't think about it anymore. So when the letter came in the mail one day she was totally shocked.

It was from the chancellor of Germany. Her manuscript had caught his attention, and he had invited her back to the city of Berlin to see all the changes that had taken place there since the wall had been torn down.

During the long train ride back to Germany Nikita thought of him often. She wondered whether he still visited Berlin now that the wall was gone. She knew that the city would be radically different from the one she had left only months before, and the sight of a familiar face in an otherwise topsy turvy world would be reassuring.

A few hours later Nikita was standing in the same spot that had been her permanent post for her entire adult life. Gone were the wall and the mass of East Germans hoping for a chance for escape. In their place were crowds of busy people going about their daily business oblivious to Nikita's presence.

She scanned the crowd. Yes. There he was. Standing by his convertible wearing his ever-present sunglasses. He waved and she waved back and began walking in his direction.

A few steps later and for the first time in her life she was standing in what had formerly been called West Berlin. It had been that easy. A feeling she couldn't describe came over Nikita. She didn't know what to call it because she had never felt it before in her life. The closest she could come to approximating it was the way an eagle must feel soaring over the ocean and looking down at the white caps of the waves so far below. It was absolutely exhilarating.

Tears came to her eyes as she thought of all the East Germans she and others had denied freedom to over all the years. How terrible she felt for them now. Yet she herself had been enslaved as it had been her duty to enslave others.

As she came closer he grinned widely. "I almost didn't recognize you without the uniform," he said pleasantly. Her assumption about him had been correct. He spoke English, not German. Nikita herself knew English in addition to her native Russian and of course German. To know the language of the enemy had been to stay one step ahead of them. Now that the former enemy had become the role model knowing their language still held certain advantages, if for different reasons.

Nikita smiled shyly. "I am called Nikita," she told him.

"You may call me Reggie," he said. "It was what I was called when I was a child."

"What country are you from, Reggie?"

"My home is England. It is where I was born and raised. But I have traveled to many different places."

"That must be so exciting!" To Nikita simply crossing from the east side of Berlin to the west had seemed such a monumental occasion.

"This city has always been one of my favorite places to visit."

"It is lovely," Nikita agreed.

"I thought this day would never come," Reggie said softly. "That you and I could stand here like this and have a conversation with one another so freely."

Nikita didn't know what to say.

"I wrote a song for you a few years ago," he told her. "Would you like to hear it?"

"Oh yes, of course!"

He sang his song for her, and when he was finished she was smiling.

"What a lovely song!" she said. "I am so very flattered. And yes, I do count the stars at night. I even know the name of the closest one. Alpha Centauri. I used to wonder how far away the farthest one was."

"I used to wonder the same thing," he told her.

They talked for a few minutes more, and then Reggie said that he had to go to an appointment.

"I can't begin to tell you how lovely it was to finally have the chance to meet you and speak with you, Nikita. May I give you a good-bye hug?"

"Oh yes, that would be so nice."

They embraced. His arms around her felt strong and supportive and he smelled nice, like expensive cologne. Nikita wanted the moment to linger.

"I never realized how good that would feel. Thank you," he said. Nikita suddenly felt very shy.

Reggie said that he was difficult to get in touch with because he traveled so much, but he wrote down her address at home and promised to stay in touch.

It was difficult to say good-bye to him. Nikita's previous friendships had always been with people very similar to herself, people she had gone to school with or worked with. Reggie's life seemed so radically different from her own. That there could be more than just one way of life was almost more than Nikita could fathom.

Yet Reggie had spoken of traveling to different places and meeting different kinds of people. Nikita wondered whether she herself would some day have the opportunities and experiences he had had. Perhaps simply crossing to the western side of Berlin was only the first step. That there could be so many choices to make in life made Nikita's head spin.

Reggie had said that there were jobs where her experience would come in handy, that institutions like banks and prisons needed security guards. Or that returning to school to learn a different trade could be an option as well. Reggie told her that he had connections and would be more than happy to help her in any way he could.

Perhaps in Germany or even in Reggie's England there could be a job for her. Perhaps she could work awhile and save up her money and send for her family later.

She felt as if she were walking on air for the rest of the day. She was so happy to have had the chance to travel to Berlin and finally meet Reggie. Now for the first time she felt that there was hope for herself and her family.


End file.
